


Season of the Moon

by Cherron_Reed



Series: The Red Dragon Series by LISALU [2]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 14:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18153356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherron_Reed/pseuds/Cherron_Reed
Summary: I DID NOT WRITE THIS FICThe Red Dragon TetralogyBy Lisalu(NC-17) After the Buu Saga, an old enemy returns to destroy the Saiyajins of Chikyuu and take over the universe with the help of the Red Dragonballs. Just what are these Red Dragonballs? Who is this old enemy? Read and unravel the incredible universe that Lisalu has created.Series II of the Red Dragon Tetralogy





	Season of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I DID NOT WRITE THIS FIC.  
> THIS FIC IS WRITTEN BY LISALU
> 
> QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? MAIL ME AT lisalu@ peoplepc.com

PROLOGUE: Gurasia

 

The white-robed priests hummed in religious ecstasy as the first among them spoke the Namekian incantation that set the seven tiny red dragon balls that lay inert at the center of their circle alight. The red beast that sprang from the dimensional portal into the realm of time, space and matter glowered down at them and seemed to strain at the jesses of the ring of ruby orbs that held him in check. The High Priest spoke his wish, the only wish in his heart or the hearts of any of these last remnants of a vanishing race of erstwhile galactic rulers. The dragon rumbled a grudging affirmation and the trilling pitch of the lesser members of the order rose to a shriek of joy. Above them, beaming down brightly upon the windswept white plains around the isolate temple, the three moons of Tsiru-sei would see the resurrection of their lord, their god, their most beloved master.

The Priest blinked, and shook his head in the sudden silence. The other Tsiru-jin hissed nervously, shivering. Something had happened….The wish had been granted, yet nothing had changed. He choked out an angry caw of cheated horror as he raised his head and saw that the hovering ring of Red Dragon Balls had vanished. The others began edging away into the shadows fearfully. A high, thin wail cut through the frozen silence, and he looked down at his feet.

The Dragon Balls were gone. In their place lay something tiny, white and infinitely more precious. It shrilled again pitifully, its voice a little stronger. The priest knelt and scooped up the newborn Tsiru-jin, his white face beaming with wonder and awe.

"My beautiful little Lord," he said lovingly.

 

CHAPTER I: BEGINNINGS (Fifteen Years Later)

 

She stood still and straight as a stone as they watched Shen Lon and the small boy who sat nodding astride his great neck wink out of sight beyond the horizon. She could feel the concerned eyes of her friends and family on her, feel their pity like a burning rash on her skin.

"Well!" She made her voice as irritable as possible. "I should go home and start cooking. This definitely calls for a victory dinner. Gokou-saa will probably be very hungry when he returns!"

Her oldest son looked at her, his face stricken. She narrowed her eyes, daring him to contradict her. "I'm sure he will, Kassan," Gohan said sadly.

A gust of wind tugged at her hair, the force of Vegita hurling himself into the sky with an angry curse. Bulma was staring after him, a worried frown creasing her face. The other woman was wearing her late fifties much better than she was herself, Chi-Chi reflected. Something clattered harshly inside her chest. Of course, Bulma had not lived the last ten years alone either. It was surprising how much age curling up with nothing but a good book every night could put on a woman. The thought was angry, bitter and shrill. Just like me, she thought. Stingy, shrewish, and jealous…Jealous of the well-being of the entire world--the entire galaxy.

None of this played out on her face. It was set in a fixed mold of annoyed cheerfulness. Gohan said nothing. He took her thin, trembling hand like the sweet child he had always been and led her away from the settling dust of the ruined West Capital.

 

 

The child sighed and turned fitfully in his sleep. On all sides, ringed in endless receding rows above the green fields of eternity, the dragons solemnly looked on. Insubstantial and intangible as though they had been stenciled in brightly colored smoke, they did not speak. They simply stared in silent accusation at the five figures who knelt around the boy's sleeping body.

"Oh, stop that!" Said Kia Sama irritably. "There was nothing else we could do!"

The dragons did not reply.

"They are right," said Dende. "This is a poor reward. For all of them."

Kai Shin nodded in somber agreement. "It would be a hard destiny for any soul. And for one who has done so much--"

"A living being cannot contain the power of a dragon's wishes within himself and still walk in the physical world!" Kai Sama said emphatically, shaking his head sadly. "He agreed to be the vessel of safe-keeping for Chikyuu's dragon balls and Shen Lon's gaurdian."

"He didn't know what he was agreeing to!" Dende said angrily. "It's not fair! More than that, it's not right!"

"He's right, Jouten," the hollow, raspy baritone the the new, default guardian of Hell murmured. Piccalo narrowed his eyes angrily. "Besides, he's had access to Chikyuu's dragon balls his whole life and never misused them."

Jouten spoke after a long thoughtful silence. "He was chosen to be the dragon ball's vessel because of his purity." He touched the sleeping boy's face and the child stirred, yawning. "Ojjichan?"

"What would you wish for, my son," God asked gently. "If you could have anything you wanted in the entire universe."

The boy smiled drowsily. "I wanna go home, Ojjichan. I was dreaming about my family and my friends and they were sad…"

The dragon balls sang softly like the wind chimes of some distant giant.

"GRANTED," said Shen Lon, narrowing the jeweled facets of his great emerald eyes defiantly at the Kais.

"Let it be so," said Jouten. "You have one more wish left, Child. Why not…" He paused, considering. "Why not do something nice for yourself." He touched the boy one last time and the small body blurred into the muscular form of a young man in the prime of life, before fading away.

"He will be needed soon, I think," Jouten said after a moment.

"Maybe sooner than we thought," Piccolo muttered. "Our little bit of fall out from the Red Dragon Balls has been sneaking into my new piece of real estate for long chats with Poppa. He doesn't know I'm onto him, yet."

"See if he can be reasoned with and turned aside from whatever course of action he is contemplating," Jouten said quietly.

Piccolo muttered something almost inaudible about getting saddled with another damn kid and Jouten only smiled mildly.

"Fall out?" Dende said apprehensively.

"Wishes can be unraveled and events can be undone," murmured Jouten. "But it is one of the tenants of creation that souls cannot be unmade."

 

 

Too late, Vegita thought. He sat on the bed beside his wife's sleeping form, watching her face. The events of the last months coupled with the victory today that felt more like a defeat had taken their toll on her. She was not losing her beauty as she sank faster and farther into this thing Chikyuu-jin called old age. He swallowed hard. She had asked him once, years ago, how long Saiyans lived. He had responded with something arrogant and flip, telling her they lived until they were killed.

The truth was, he didn't know. Most Saiyans did not live past one hundred years simply because a warrior could only have so many near misses before his luck ran out. He knew his own father had been close to two hundred when he died, and he had shown no visible signs of age. Age had been nothing more than an indication of prowess in battle. To live long was to be strong enough not to be killed. Not this…this weakening, crumbling, slow death that Chikyuu-jin suffered.

And now he had lost any chance he would ever have to spare her that. The dragon balls were gone. The sun that had set on Kakarott's passing today had ended an era. How could he have been such a complacent fool? To think there would always be time for such things later. To have planned like a mooning boy to give her this gift she would never have thought to ask for herself, waiting for the proper moment until it was too late.

Too late…

Too late to settle accounts with Kakarott as well. Too late to…What?

To finally best the mindless fool once and for all? To say, I am your better, Kakarott?

He could not and he was not, and even after thirty years that thought still made his hands clench with impotent fury. To say, Do not leave me alone Kakarott, alone in all the universe, the last of our kind…

"Vegita?" Bulma had opened her eyes. She was staring at his face, squinting in the dim light, the corners of her eyes crinkled into a worried frown.

He leaned down and touched his lips to her forehead. "Lazy woman," He said softly. "You've slept half the night away."

She glanced at the clock, stretching. "I should call Chi-Chi and check on her. It's not too late."

Too late…

"Vegita?" She said again, not asking what was wrong. Her mouth quirked mischievously as her hand reached out tentatively and stroked---

He gasped involuntarily as something like an infusion of liquid fire shot up his spine. "Be careful with that, Woman," he remarked unsteadily. She grinned and continued trailing her fingers along his tail with a maddening, light touch.

"This may take a little getting used to. Is it sensitive?" She squeezed gently and was rewarded with a soft growl. He pulled her up roughly and traced his sharp teeth along the soft skin of her throat.

"You could say that," he whispered hoarsely. She gripped him again, a little harder this time, and chuckled as his whole body vibrated with desire. Wicked woman. He was going to last about as long as an untried boy if she kept this up.

Vegita?

The mental voice was like a bucket of icy water.

Kakarott?

Um…is this a bad time?

Vegita's already flushed face reddened further as he got the sense that the other man was looking directly into his mind.

What the hell do you want, Kakarott? He sent back harshly. But something inside him had begun to rejoice like a child at the sense of the fool's presence drawing ever nearer. He could feel Bulma watching him curiously, seeing the change in his face. She knew the unfocused look of telepathic contact.

I'm coming home, said Kakarott's faint voice. I…um…I need to ask your advice on something.

Vegita broke the link with a nearly audible snap, and bent down, kissing Bulma. "I'll be back." He shot out the window like a missile, chuckling at the angry curses she hurled after him, demanding some kind of explanation.

Gokou pulled up sharply as the other Saiyan rocketed into his path.

"Where are they?" Vegita demanded angrily.

Gokou thought hard. "Where are what?" He said finally.

"Where are the fucking dragon balls, Kakarott?" Vegita said slowly, enunciating each syllable with a sharp clip.

"Oh!" Gokou tapped his chest. "They're inside me…oops…I wasn't supposed to tell anyone that. I forgot." He shook his head in mild self-disparagement. "Sometimes I wish---"

He was cut off by a blow that sent him reeling back through the air. He stared at the other Saiyan's angry face in hurt surprise. "If they are inside you and you wish for something, even casually," Vegita grated, "It might be granted."

"Oh, yeah," Gokou said sheepishly. "I forgot that too. Arigato, Vegita."

Vegita stared at him, several emotions at war for control of his sharp features. "Anything you wish for…Kuso, Kakarott!" He tried too keep the awe out of his voice. "If you were any other man, I would say that you were too dangerous to be allowed to live."

"It's not all the time," Gokou said. "I have to use up one more wish, and then I won't have to worry about it for another 180 days. My body is sort of keeping Shen Lon and the dragon balls from …uh…falling apart, I guess. I don't know how. I think Dende does. Anyway, I have to get rid of one more wish." He frowned. "Jouten told me I had to wish for something nice for myself. What should I wish for, Vegita?"

Vegita was silent, his face unreadable as always. But some invisible tension had just eased out of his posture. Then he smiled. Gokou was sure that if he knew how nice he looked when he smiled, really smiled, Vegita would never do it again. He had often wondered who it was that had first taught Vegita that being a good man was something to be embarrassed about. Gokou thought he would like to hit that person. Hard.

"Our women are dying by inches, Kakarott," Vegita told him. "Did you not see the difference in them when you returned last year? They will die of old age before we are even a quarter through our natural life span. Trunks and Bra and your brats will all suffer the same fate as you and I. Their mates will grow old and die while they remain unchanged."

Gokou felt something cold and empty in the pit of his stomach. The thought of never seeing Chi-Chi again, of her being dead and gone forever…

"Should I wish to make them young again?"

Vegita thought for a moment, trying to determine the best possible way to word the wish. "Wish that all those who are or will be mated to those of Saiyan blood be given a natural lifespan equivalent to that of their mate."

Gokou beamed with admiration. Vegita was so smart! He concentrated, repeating the wish word for word, feeling the power of Shen Lon roll through him as the wish was granted. The dragon was very happy to never have to come back to Chikyuu again. He had told Gokou as they had slumbered together in Jouten's fields that manifesting in the mortal plain made him itch. The pings of a dozen different kis, all familiar, all well-loved, were suddenly speeding toward their location. Vegita was glancing away to the west, a faint smirk playing across his lips. Through the low level, tenuous mental tie that they had established during their fusion, that had never really dissipated entirely, Gokou could hear Bulma's surprised squeak, followed by delighted laughter, as the wish took effect. Vegita responded with a soft chuckle and shot of in the direction of Capsule Corp without a backward look.

Gokou focused on Chi-Chi, concentrating hard. Uh-oh. She had fainted. He smiled, the realization that he was coming home, really coming home, as a man, not a child, washing all over him. He would have a long, long time to make it up to her.

 

He knelt in the cloistered peace of the temple that had been his home for the entirety of his young life, his pale features pinched in concentration. The bracing fall breeze that danced in through the great arched windows from the endless white tundra would have frozen the lungs of any warm-natured race in the space of half a breath. He found it invigorating. Autumn was his favorite season. It made the blood less sluggish, the heart beat stronger, and all things seem possible. His pale brows drew together as he delved inward, grasping the tie, the transparent, inexplicable thread that carried his mind once more unerringly to the source of his own creation, touching at last the mind he now knew as well as his own. Clear and cold and hard as a diamond cut to a razor's edge, sharp and sweet and cruel as though that same blade pierced his heart with each new contact. The absolute love and pride that flowed into his consciousness from the other's mind seemed to enfold him in an all-encompassing embrace.

"Gurasia," The voice sighing his name was like a carress.

"Father," the boy said softly. "I have done as you asked. I have learned all my Inlu-jin tutors could teach me of the healing arts. I have learned all the mental and telepathic disciplines of the priesthood. There is no more they can show me--I have surpassed them all." The tiny white hands clenched tightly. "Tell me now how I may avenge you. I would lay all the galaxy to waste if it would make you smile!"

"Slowly, calmly," his father's voice cautioned and paused, as though gathering thoughts. . "These enemies are far, far stronger than you, my sweetest child. If they learn of your existence there will be no safe place in creation for you to hide. I have had much time to reflect on past tactical errors…" Soft, bitter laughter. "Time is all I have now. I am lost to hope. I will never be released or reborn. All I have is you, but if I could see you triumphant, it would be sufficient comfort to damnation."

"I will do anything!" Gurasia said brokenly.

"This contact is fleeting at best, and dangerous for you, dear one. I think it is only because you were still a part of me when all was lost that we are able to speak at all. It may already be drawing unwanted attention to you. We should not speak again until this game is won. So, hear me now. Our enemies are strong. All that you feel for me, they feel for each other. We must break them apart and turn them against each other to make them vulnerable. I have chosen the time of our attack in a season when they will be most vulnerable to dissent."

"How?"

"I had won," his father's voice murmured. "All their great power had come to nothing, when I was undone by the weakest of their number. She defeated me with cleverness, Gurasia. This frail, powerless bitch who I thought I had already destroyed. We will take that lesson to heart and shape our attack in similar fashion. This is why I commanded you to direct all of your training toward psychic disciplines. You will not be strong enough to defeat them with brute force for several centuries, but I will tell you how to set the Saiyans of Chikyuu to destroy one another."

"Tell me," Gurasia breathed.

"Memory," his father's voice whispered, "Is the foundation of self."

 

 

The slanting afternoon light from the open French doors painted ever-lengthening shadows across the bedroom floor. If it had set the bed itself on fire, neither occupant of the sweltering, sunwashed room would have noticed. Vegita brushed the damp hair out of her eyes and kissed the smooth skin of his wife's face, as fresh and unlined as the day he had first lain eyes on her. She smiled down at him wickedly, tightening her muscles around him with each rise and fall of her body as she moved above him. So much surrender in this position, so much giving over of control, if only symbolically. He opened his mouth in a silent cry, another wave of pleasure searing through him as she enfolded him completely once more, warm and tight and burning with the fire he had lit inside her. He sat up, hands trailing down the sides of her face, her lips, her neck. His mouth caught one soft breast and nipped gently at the nipple making her gasp. It was something akin to combat--it always was with her. Each striving against the other's body in fevered competition to extract the greater response, each the victor in the end. Her hand ensnared his tail and he inhaled sharply, conceding the advantage. An errant shaft of sunlight caught his eyes, seeming to blind him, as she pushed him over the edge, tearing a full-throated cry from him as he came inside her, drowning in the scent and taste and feel of her. He pushed her down beneath him, every inch of his body trembling, and lay his head on her chest, the pounding of her heart thrumming in his ear. After a moment, one soft hand traced its way up from the base of his tail along his spine sending new ripples of desire shooting through every interconnected nerve.

"If you want any rest at all," his voice was a low purr, "You should stop that, Woman."

"We actually should start thinking about getting cleaned up and dressed," she said. "Chi-Chi said 8:00pm." She flexed both arms above her head in a luxuriant, yawning stretch. He propped up on his elbows to kiss her, and his eyes lit on four reddish, circular marks the size of his own fingertips on her left tricep, already darkening into an ugly bluish-black. His face must have betrayed the sick shock he was feeling.

"It's all right," she told him gently, running one hand down his cheek. "We've had a very…active afternoon. You just got a little carried away--" She broke off as he pulled away from her, sitting up, turning his back. He was silent for a long moment.

"I have marked you here," he said finally, lightly touching the base of his throat, "Many times. It is instinctive, and is a way of saying you are mine." He stopped, staring out the balcony window where Chikyuu's yellow sun was beginning to slip below the horizon. "But in nearly thirty years, I have never once marked or bruised your body in any other way. Not since that first night when I--" He stopped again. In half a lifetime, they had never spoken of or discussed the details of that first night. She put her arms on his shoulders, touching muscles suddenly as taught as a bowstring, and lay one side of her face against his back. "When I hurt you," he finished with effort. "I did not know how it should be between a man and a woman until you showed me…and since that night…since then, I have always taken care not to cause you pain or…" He turned and pulled her around into his arms. She remained silent, listening, letting him speak. He pointed out the window, where low in the dusky summer sky, the planet Tugol was rising in a waxing gibbous. "Chikyuu's new "moon" will be full tomorrow night." Bulma's eyes widened in apprehension. As he gazed at the tiny satellite world that now drifted through the exact arc of the old moon's orbit, his eyes flickered for a brief moment. Coal black burned into red, rimmed with feral gold.

"Oh Kami, Vegita!" She whispered. "Your tail!"

"I should not have come to our bed so close to the full moon," he said, his eyes returning to normal. "I can control the madness and keep from changing, even under direct moonlight, but the moon…"

"Brings out the animal in you?" She laughed softly at the startled look he gave her that melted into a hesitant answering grin.

He sobered abruptly. "There is something else I must tell you. I have already explained it to Kakarott in small words so he would understand. You should tell his woman what I am about to tell you. Tomorrow night is not just full moon. It is Tugol's perigee. Tugol will come as close to Chikyuu as Vegita-sei's moon came once every eight years in its elliptical orbit."

"I thought you said you had taught Gokou to control the change," Bulma said quietly.

Vegita nodded. He seemed to pick up the technique almost instantly, had already half-mastered it in the leap to Super Saiyan 4. "This will be the first real test. And because Tugol will be so close, we may not be able to maintain control. I think…I am not absolutely sure…but, I believe the perigee will send us into rut."

Bulma stared at him. "Rut? You mean….rut?" A tiny grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. She looked amused and intrigued. "And this is bad how?'

He snorted, frowning furiously at her with the frustration of trying to explain what he didn't fully understand himself. "Insatiable, low-born wench," he growled softly. She laughed. "It is the oozaru madness without the release that the change affords, coupled with a kind of frenzy of desire. Those are the words Nappa used to explain it to me. Raditz told me once it was the loss of thought and self to desire, that you and your partner fairly rend each other to pieces in the act of mating. Raditz kept a string of whores and mistresses on his payroll half a light year long, but he said he had never found anything to equal it."

"Huh," she shifted irritably in his embrace, laying her head against his shoulder and following his gaze upward to the offending planet. "Have you?'

He tilted her head around to face him. "I was four years old when Vegita-sei saw her last full moon. I have no basis for comparison. You are the only woman I have ever had, and the only woman I have ever loved. And if I come to you tomorrow night, I will kill you."

"What will you do?" She asked shakily.

"I will go with Kakarott to some deserted place," he said. "And we will beat the hell out of each other until the moon sets. We will let the need to mate be overwhelmed by the first and foremost instinct of our race---the need to fight."

 

 

Gurasia stared through the cheerfully blinking lights of the tiny scout ship as it slowly dipped into Chikyuu's atmosphere. He cast his mind downward into the bottomless well of darkness that was the realm where his father's soul lay imprisoned for all time. His tail lashed angrily at the thought while his consciousness streaked along the now well-known path through the burning labyrinth of blistering cells that housed all of Hell's "evil-doers". The semblance of a high stone wall suddenly reared up before him just shy of his goal, slamming shut in his face.

"Going somewhere special?" A rough voice like timpani brushed with sandpaper. Before him, arms folded, stood a Namek. A very big Namek. His father had warned him to be ware of Hell's new guardian, had warned that returning would be dangerous. And now he had stumbled directly into the creature's hands.

He hissed defiantly. "Get out of my way, Namek!"

"It doesn't have to be this way, boy," the Demon King said.

"No?" Gurasia said, hating the trilling sound of his immature voice against the powerful bass of the Namek. "I think it does. You imprisoned my father in the deepest, most torment-wracked pit in your realm and deny him even the comfort of seeing his only child!" His astral body trembled with rage. "Monster!"

Piccalo snorted. "The Pit is reserved for monsters. Let me give you a crash course on how Hell works. Enma is just the paper pusher. Me? I'm sort of hall monitor and custodian, and occasionally, the bouncer. Every living thing that can think and reason is born with a kernel of creation inside them--This core knows right from wrong. Souls condemn themselves, either by denying the existence of good or their own evil deeds, or by refusal to let memory fade so they can be reborn. Your father has no remorse for all the shit he did in his life and he won't let go of who he was. He is damning himself."

"Liar!" the boy spat. "He told me how you torture him. How the Kais were jealous of his power--"

"He's been spoon-feeding you poison, Gurasia," the Devil said, and hid a grin at the youngster's gaping expression. "Oh, yeah. I know your name, kid. All the Kais do. He told you we'd kill you if we knew about you didn't he?" The boy was silent. "We don't work like that. You haven't done anything wrong…yet. But we are watching you. You were conceived and carried to viability by a being who had attained the power of a god. There's every reason to think that you will be every bit as powerful when you reach adulthood in a few hundred years. If you start any shit, they will step in and stop you before you can grow to reach your full power."

"I…" He stared at the Namek sullenly. "I should be allowed to see him."

"So he can fill your head up with dreams of destruction and revenge even more than he already has?" Piccalo Daimo regarded the boy's face intently. "Do you think he cares about you?" Angry silence. "He loved you when he carried you inside him because of a hormonal oxytosin in his brain released by pregnancy, and evolutionary imperative that keeps vicious species from aborting or devouring their young before they are weaned in order to perpetuate the species. He doesn't give a damn about anybody or anything, including you. I understand you better than you think, you know. I was born to exactly the same sort of parent in almost the same set of circumstances. I caused so much death and destruction in the name of avenging him that, even though I changed and earned Heaven at the end of my life, fate still conspired to land me here." The Demon King loomed up like a tower, leaning down, til he was nose to nose with the little Tsiru-jin. "Everything you do, you pay for, Kid. One way or another. You don't have to learn that the hard way if you don't want to. Like I said, it's yours to choose. But I can see to it that Frieza doesn't fuck with your head anymore."

Something seized the tie, the link that had been present since he had been aware of anything at all, and snapped it. Gurasia screamed. He was all alone. Alone inside his head!

"Now get the hell out of my realm," the Namek told him. He sent the weeping boy's spirit on his way with a gentle but irresistible shove. "I don't want to see you down here again." He stood in silence for a moment, the grim set of his features deepening. "Ever," he finished quietly.

 

 

Son Gokou sat on a rocky outface of a cliff overlooking the green hills of the great western forest. He put his head back, filling up with the peace and balance of Chikyuu's natural order, letting confusion and anxiety washed off of him like grime in a warm bath. Chi-Chi was mad at him. That wasn't a surprise, or it shouldn't have been. She had been mad at him many times in the 40-odd years that he had known her, but…

Dammit.

He could do so many things that other people couldn't. Why couldn't he make her happy? He had thought that the wish to make her age at the same speed as himself would make her happy. He had hoped that having him home again would make her happy. His mind tripped over a horrible thought. Maybe he had been away so long Chi-Chi had stopped loving him.

No. She had jumped into his arms the instant his feet had touched earth three weeks ago, having thought him lost for all time. She had been young and soft-skinned and strong again, like the girl who had trained beside him in the first year of their marriage, fighting rougher than any boy, until the day she had learned she was carrying Gohan under her heart.. Later, she had pulled him into their bedroom, and he'd noticed in the sweet, confused burn of discarded clothing and warm bare skin that she had not changed one piece of furniture, not one single decoration. She loved him still.

But this afternoon, when he'd told her he was leaving tomorrow evening with Vegita to go "spar" she had broken a flowerpot over his head. A big, cast iron flower pot.

He lifted his head, grinning, as a tiny dot appeared on the horizon, bobbing and weaving aimlessly over the treetops. He raise his ki slightly and the small figure drew up short and veered over to the ledge where he sat.

"Ojjisan," Pan said, smiling wanly.

"Happy Birthday, Pan." He hugged her as she sat plopped down beside him.

"Actually, my birthday was three months ago," she said with a sigh that echoed his own.

"Oh," he grinned. "We were kind of busy back then, weren't we?"

"Just a little," her lips twitched. "Bassan wanted to have my party anyway.

I feel so much older than fifteen after all that's happened. But I'm glad to have a party." She paused. "You saw Vegita-san yesterday, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"Did he say if Trunks was coming tonight? Pan asked casually.

"Trunks?"

Pan shrugged. "I haven't seen him in two weeks. I kind of got used to seeing him every day when we were in space."

"Um, I think so. Vegita said they would all be there. Unless Trunks has to work late or he's in a really bad mood because of the moon."

"Full moon tomorrow night," Pan said, looking up. "It makes me wanna break something and I don't even have a tail." She eyed him suspiciously. "Is that why you and Vegita-san are leaving tomorrow night?"

"The moon'll be really close to Chikyuu tomorrow. Vegita says we might hurt…someone accidentally if we don't go off somewhere alone."

"Did you tell Bassan that, or did you just say you were leaving?"

"I started to. Maybe I didn't say it right," he said glumly.

"Jjissan, when you say you you're going somewhere, sometimes you don't come back for years. You just scared her, that's all. She's been so happy since you came back!"

"She has?" His face lit up. "I'm so glad to be home, Pan-chan. I'll tell her why I'm going and say I'm sorry for scaring her and tell her I love her." He sighed, this time with relief. "Love is complicated stuff, isn't it?"

"Yeah," the girl beside him said moodily, visions of pale lavender hair sweeping down over blue eyes and high, tanned cheekbones floating through her mind's eye. She stood abruptly and kissed his cheek. "I'll go tell her you're on your way. I have to get ready. Momma bought me a new dress for tonight." She grinned secretively. "Something grown-up looking." She headed off into the darkening sky and he stared after her bemusedly. He only ever understood children completely. The more Pan grew up, he thought with a little sadness, the more indecipherable her thoughts and actions became. He stood and stretched. He had a little time before the party. There was a waterfall that poured into a mountain pond a few miles east. He should wash up. He turned and stared down curiously at the small figure that had not been there a moment before. His first thought was that this tiny thing must be of the same race as Frieza. Something stirred in the back of his head, a dimly glowing ember of remembrance.

"You're Tsiru-jin, aren't you?" He finally latched onto the elusive memory; A very bad memory of a hard time years and years ago.

The young ivory face looked startled. "You remember my people?

You remember--"

Gokou nodded. "You must be Frieza's little boy. You look just like him. Yes, I remember now. It's funny how the whole thing just slipped my mind for so long. It's been…fifteen years?"

"Fifteen years to the day," the boy said wonderingly. "You shouldn't remember anything at all."

"I'm sure no one else does," Gokou replied. "I don't know why I do. I think my mind works a little differently than other people's."

"I have a message for you," the little Tsiru-jin said nervously. He crooked one finger.

"Okay," Gokou said uncertainly. It never occurred to him to be wary--the Tsiru-jin had almost no ki to speak of. And he was only a little boy. Gurasia stood on tiptoes as the big Saiyan leaned forward and touched one tiny white hand to the side of Gokou's head.

"Remember," the boy whispered.

The world spun and rumbled to a stop around him. The scar on his scalp, the one he had carried since infancy faded, and the twisted mass of scar tissue and brain cells beneath unfurled, turned pink with health, and surged to life. Gokou took a step backward and staggered, falling to his knees. "What--" he gasped, "What did you do to me?" His voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ears. A million new perceptions of memories washed over him, shifting subtly, changing, like old pictures repainted in new colors. Something, he realized, was slipping away from him, being crushed and reshaped under the onslaught of thought, something that was integral to who and what he was. It was loss of innocence, it was the loss of childhood he'd never had to suffer. It was the death of peace of mind and spirit, ripped out of his consciousness by the blinding white light that had just been switched on in his head. It hurt. It hurt so much! And with all this came something else. A parcel of utterly new memories, long lost, wrapped in a black cloud of violent impulse and blood-soaked fury.

Kakarott. Your name is Kakarott, little warrior. His father Bardock's voice.

He screamed and fell forward on his face.

How long he lay like that, sobbing and half-conscious, he didn't know. His first bleary cognizant thought was that Chi-Chi would be angry with him. He shook his head trying to clear it. It occurred to him suddenly that Chi-Chi had been angry at him for a long time. She had been swallowing her anger since he had returned, something he had never known her to do in her life, turning it inward like daily doses of poison, interweaving it with guilt and feelings of selfishness. It was eating her up inside. Anger at having been abandoned like a sack of dead weight on the side of the rode for ten long years. Idiot! How could he have not seen that? How could I have done that? He clenched his fists. Without a word of warning, as though she were nothing. And on the heels of that thought came something else that was completely new. Guilt.

Chi-Chi…

The boy!

He stood with an angry snarl, tail lashing, searching wildly with eyes and mind. The Tsiru-jin was gone. He had obviously done what he came to do--or a part of it. He had to warn his family and friends that something had begun. He launched himself in the direction of home, keeping his eyes carefully lowered against the shining orb in the sky. Everyone should be gathered at the house for Pan's party. Judging from the position of the constellations, he had been unconscious for several hours. He was late. As usual. "I'm all right," he said aloud, starting again at the difference in his voice, the deeper resonant tones of a man. "I'm still me." He laughed unevenly. "Or, at least, I still remember being me." His sped up. The moon seemed to be burning a hole in his brain. The little bastard had chosen his timing well. It was no accident that the boy had done…what he had just done to him on the eve of this particular moon. His mind began sifting through multiple possibilities of the havoc an enemy who could manipulate memory could wreak among a group of such powerful people, each scenario more gruesome that the last. Kami, was this what it was like to be smart? He didn't like it! He smashed one fist into his palm and the and the valleys below reverberated with the echo that was like a clap of thunder. When he got his hands on that pasty little brat Gurasia, he would take great pleasure in ripping him apart one piece at a time.

* * * * *


End file.
